Half-Life 2: The Orange Box for PlayStation 3 Reviews by Gamers

I played Half life 2 on PC and loved it. The PS3 version is even better, I mean come on! Five games in one disk ?!? The series is a prime example of what a good FPS game should have: awesome graphics, immersive story, exciting visceral game play and great characters. Portal is one of the most ingenious games I've ever played. It is intriguing and full of good humor and puzzles that will require you to use both your dexterity and mental toughness to succeed. At times the game plays with your head which makes it really cool ;)

So if you are a spray-n-pray, gung-ho, kill-em-all kind of player don't even bother with this one. But if you think you're smart enough...

I haven't gone through everything yet but as far as I can tell this is pretty much just a direct port of HL2, the expansions and Portal[1] (I'm not really into network games so I didn't try out Team Fortress). So don't expect "next gen" quality graphics as IMHO it looks like they didn't really change anything for this release. However, it's still HL2 and it's still a lot fun :D Also, to be honest, the graphics and sound really aren't that bad either. It's probably not going to WOW you, but it's still a good looking & sounding game and you'll be able to figure out which way to shoot which is really the important part anyway isn't it ;)

In addition to the games themselves, some of them include a "designer's commentary" feature. When you enable this you'll find little word balloons scattered around the levels. When you activate them there is a quick commentary from one of the people who help develop and design the game. You may not choose to ever do this, but I found it to be interesting and different approach from the standard "making of" feature that is packed into some games these days.

So the bottom line is, if you like HL2, even with all it's flaws (non-skipable cut scenes, drawn out "exposition", occasional "what am I supposed to now" sequences of being lost), you'll probably like this. Even without the online aspect, the fact you get the main game, two expansions and Portal means there's a lot packed into one disk. If you haven't tried HL in the past, now would be a good time to give it a try for the same reason. Frankly Portal is worth the "price" of the rental alone. My only complaints are the fact Portal was too short (and there doesn't seem to be a way to incorporate downloadable content) and they should have added the portal gun to the main game, maybe that's for HL3 :D

[1] If you haven't seen or heard of Portal yet it's a puzzle game in which you try to escape various rooms by means of opening gateways you can create with a portal gun.